hi@polygraph.studio

Made in New York, NY

Polygraph

We’re an award-winning in-house visual journalism team for purpose-aligned organizations.


We partner on editorial that wields data visualization, primary research, and interactivity.


The best in visual storytelling, for hire

Our team is comprised of the same folks behind The Pudding, an online publication that explains ideas debated in culture with visual essays.

The editorial work has been covered by just about every major news outlet, but we’re most-proud of the individual endorsements, ranging from Mark Cuban to Questlove.

awards

Peabody Awards - digital journalism

Society of News Designers - gold medal

Information is Beautiful Awards - one gold, two silvers, and three bronze awards

From idea to code

We’re unlike most content studios or agencies because we don’t specialize. All team members can research, design, code, and write, meaning we work far faster and more cohesively than other operations.

Our team is an eclectic group, comprised of former journalists, scientists, designers, coders, and researchers.

We partner with organizations who are purpose-aligned.

We work on projects that are aligned with our editorial rubric.

The idea is worthy of public discourse. Would a 4-person group debate the premise of the idea for 20 minutes? What assumptions does it challenge?

There’s a deeper truth. What deeper truth does it reveal (even if it’s buried deep in the essay)? Does the reader leave the essay feeling differently?

We’re showing, not telling. Visuals make your argument more accessible and less complex than a thousand-word essay. That detail allows readers to form their own opinions without taking the author’s argument word-for-word.

IBM Watson

30 Years of American Anxieties

In partnership with IBM Watson, we looked at over 20,000 “Dear Abby” advice column letters to find what Americans worried about over the last 30 years. The project utilized IBM Watson APIs to measure sentiment.

Read the article.

Google News Lab

The Year in Language

We identified 2018’s rising words by ranking Search interest growth for definitions of words (e.g., searches for “woke definition,” “define woke”). The project was the subject of an NBC video series.

Visit the project.

Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery

Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence

In partnership with the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, we analyzed political party platforms to find how often women’s issues appear in the text. We produced a data-driven video that you can see live at the gallery in Washington DC until January 2020.

Watch the video.

Google Trends

World Cup 2018: How the World is Searching

We created a live-updating data hub for all things World Cup and Google search data. The site includes data for over 20 countries and translated in 5 languages. The project was covered in several media outlets around the world as an input for local World Cup coverage.

Visit the project.

Elemental Excelerator x Emerson Collective

Transcending Oil

In tandem with Rhodium Group, a research firm to bring to life a report on how Hawaiʻi can achieve 100% renewable energy, communicating the study’s main findings to a general audience.

View the project.

OpenNews

News Nerd Survey

We visualized survey results from 800 people at the intersection of journalism and technology to understand who they are, how they learn and support one another, and where they go next.

View the project.

Viacom

Fan Theory

This three-part essay was executed using partner data from IMDb, including a neurological, fMRI study of South Park. It will also featured as a panel at SXSW 2018.

Visit the project.

Kickstarter

Creative Communities, by City

Anecdotally, aspiring musicians flock to Nashville. Portland has a vibrant food truck scene. Theater is rooted in New York City. Yet what about other cities? What is the creative fabric of Cleveland? Where do comic book writers cluster?

We worked directly with Kickstarter (and used a data dump of thousands of projects) to get answers.

Visit the project.

YouTube

Clinton and Trump: Who Voters Are Watching

Before the 2016 US Presidential Election, we examined behavior of YouTube viewers. The project received press from the Washington Post and Daily Mail.

Visit the project.

The Atlantic

The Platinum Patients

After reaching out for visualization support, this collaboration with The Atlantic investigated health care: each year, 1 in every 20 Americans racks up just as much in medical bills as another 19 combined. This critical five percent of the U.S. population is key to solving the nation's health care spending crisis.

Visit the project.

Google News Lab

Restaurants

Using a first-of-its-kind dataset, we visualized restaurant data from the Google Maps team. What is the pizza capital of the US? Check out the project, or see the write-up on Food+Wine and Thrillist.

Visit the project.

American Society of News Editors+Google

How Diverse Are US Newsrooms?

Using exclusive data from the American Society of News Editors, we visualized 15 years of gender/diversity data from hundreds of newsrooms.

Visit the project.